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BeanBeanKingdom
Joined: 28 Dec 2024
Posts: 46
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 Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2026 2:36 pm |
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I've also been obsessed with it, it's just so fun to rewatch and analyze. Every scene is stuffed full of details that you will miss on your first watch. Just one of my favorites: during Yachiyo's performance the first time the girls log into Tsukuyomi, she makes the "kissing fox" part of Iroha and Kaguya's handshake for exactly three frames while singing the lyrics "never let me go again". It's somewhat comforting to have a movie so overstuffed with detail and commanding your full attention nowadays when a lot of Netflix productions especially are made to be half-watched on a second monitor while doing something else and dumbed down accordingly.
| Quote: | | A theatrical release would go so hard |
How incredibly timely, Japan is getting one due to the overwhelming response to the movie. And check out the theatrical trailer if you haven't. They decided to focus it entirely on the romance between Iroha and Kaguya and it's a thing of beauty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoiZqk1rIuY
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MemoBookworm
Joined: 09 Jul 2015
Posts: 49
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| Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2026 3:14 pm |
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Kaguya-sama: Love Is War also plays with the tale a bit. In 2x3 Shirogane critiques the ending of the tale, saying that the man should have taken the immortality potion and then gone to the moon, no matter how many lifetimes it would take. The ED of season 3 later depicts this.
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LR.Skyrabbit
Joined: 19 Aug 2024
Posts: 28
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| Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2026 8:11 pm |
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I initially wasn't very fond of the twist reveal, because time travel plots with closed loops drive me up the wall. I always start thinking "couldn't they have used their foresight to prevent this from happening?" And whenever I try to break down the chain of events I end up with some variation of "B happened because A happened, but A happened because of B, which happened because A happened, because B happened, because... because that's the story the author wanted to tell, okay?" But after reading this article, I think... I hate the plot point more still? Halfway through the page, I came to the realization that the film's themes of "screw fate! i don't care how the story is 'supposed to' go!" contrast really hard against a recursive plot structure, where the things that happen to the characters don't truly have a causal origin other than the whim of an higher power (the writer). Is it just me? Do I suck at internalizing time travel plots? Am I failing to approach the work on its own terms?
Also, I feel like I should mention the detail where it's offhandedly revealed that Slug!Kaguya invented the first version of the very tale that her past (future?) self would rage against, but I've spent an hour staring at the forum-message-writing page because I couldn't figure out how I even felt about that fact.
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BeanBeanKingdom
Joined: 28 Dec 2024
Posts: 46
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| Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2026 4:53 am |
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^ It's the bootstrap paradox interpretation of time travel. The act of time travel is what causes the events of the movie and eventually the act of time travel itself, there is no concept of "changing events" since the cause itself would be prevented at that point.
| LR.Skyrabbit wrote: | | I came to the realization that the film's themes of "screw fate! i don't care how the story is 'supposed to' go!" contrast really hard against a recursive plot structure, where the things that happen to the characters don't truly have a causal origin other than the whim of an higher power (the writer). Is it just me? Do I suck at internalizing time travel plots? Am I failing to approach the work on its own terms? |
The ultimate message of the movie is that you can achieve your happy ending but you have to work hard for it. There are no convenient shortcuts. Kaguya still has to finish her work on the moon and can't just erase the time it took by time traveling. Iroha can't simply have her old Kaguya back and has to accept everything about her, then change her entire life trajectory to bring her back into the physical world. If you want to see deeper connections to the original fairy tale, then the time travel accident is the equivalent to the crime and punishment the original Kaguya received. Pretty much everything in the movie still follows the fairy tale, it's not a retort in the sense of denying its events but rather moving past its bogus "happy" ending and reaching a proper one. I suggest checking the lyrics to the ending song "ray" as they are very poignant. "It'll be okay / This pain won't go away / Even if I forget, it'll stay with me" and "It'll be all right / I see this ray of light / And I know at the start / You're standing there" among others. Iroha and Kaguya's happiness is so meaningful because they experience despair and are still so devoted to each other they're able to persevere and break past it.
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Aleximonious
Joined: 10 Feb 2017
Posts: 14
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| Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 1:34 pm |
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| LR.Skyrabbit wrote: | | Is it just me? Do I suck at internalizing time travel plots? Am I failing to approach the work on its own terms? |
No, I thought it was bad too. It felt like a cheap answer as to why Yachiyo knows more than she's letting on about Iroha and the Lunarians. I thought the answer was going to be that Yachiyo had something to do with her dad, not that she literally is Kaguya
| BeanBeanKingdom wrote: | | Iroha and Kaguya's happiness is so meaningful because they experience despair and are still so devoted to each other they're able to persevere and break past it. |
This is true, but can also be true without the time travel, so it still leaves the impression on me that it just comes out of nowhere when it really doesn't need to be there at all
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LR.Skyrabbit
Joined: 19 Aug 2024
Posts: 28
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2026 12:12 pm |
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| Aleximonious wrote: | | LR.Skyrabbit wrote: | | Is it just me? Do I suck at internalizing time travel plots? Am I failing to approach the work on its own terms? |
No, I thought it was bad too. It felt like a cheap answer as to why Yachiyo knows more than she's letting on about Iroha and the Lunarians. |
Well, I wouldn't go so far as to describe the reveal like it was made up to fill a plot hole... I think the writer's process was a little more professional than that...
| Quote: | | I thought the answer was going to be that Yachiyo had something to do with her dad, not that she literally is Kaguya |
...but anyways, I totally misinterpreted the foreshadowing in the same way! 
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